3 games spare and CL secured. Well done Mourinho

[DomesticTadpole]

Yay we achieved the bare minimum and qualified for the CL after the amount we spend every summer but still barely looking like a team...

Let's not start celebrating getting top 4 these days, we aren't Arsenal, and any manager who fails to qualify for the CL deserves to be sacked on the spot. Last season the only thing that saved Mourinho was winning the Europa League.

It has taken City, not Pep a while to build that side, with a lot of mistakes along the way. We still have a defence which largely consists of SAF players. I am not too concerned about the CB's, but my god having Valencia and Young, apart for the goal of course. They need replacing. He is trying to get a winning mentality into this side, but I also think he needs to make sure they are motivated for every game, because they are not yet good enough in certain positions to freewheel through games. They also need another clinical goalscorer. Lukaku is not enough, so hoping Sanchez is better after a pre-season.

I can see progress result wise, but people moan about the style, I don't as such, but if we played Jose's style more efficiently we will still score plenty and put teams away. The efficiency is a problem for me. If we create and take our chances we can coast through the rest of the game.

 

[Adisa]

No one is criticising him but expecting us to put up a bunting is a bit silly.

 

[NotATroll]

Im aware?

Look, mate. You don't just go into a gym and become a champion boxer. Things proceed by steps. If you win your early fights you should have a small sense of achievement albeit still being hungry to get better.

 

[Freak]

Clear signs of progress.

 

[Minimalist]

No one is criticising him but expecting us to put up a bunting is a bit silly.

Especially considering we're only about £150-200m (if that) behind City in terms of net spending since Ferguson retired.

We're back to where we should be. It's par.

 

[Sandikan]

While we'd obviously like to be top and playing champagne football, it's the most comfortable champions league qualification we've had since Fergie days. That shouldn't be taken lightly in 5 years.

 

[bosnian_red]

It has taken City, not Pep a while to build that side, with a lot of mistakes along the way. We still have a defence which largely consists of SAF players. I am not too concerned about the CB's, but my god having Valencia and Young, apart for the goal of course. They need replacing. He is trying to get a winning mentality into this side, but I also think he needs to make sure they are motivated for every game, because they are not yet good enough in certain positions to freewheel through games. They also need another clinical goalscorer. Lukaku is not enough, so hoping Sanchez is better after a pre-season.

I can see progress result wise, but people moan about the style, I don't as such, but if we played Jose's style more efficiently we will still score plenty and put teams away. The efficiency is a problem for me. If we create and take our chances we can coast through the rest of the game.

Don't think anyone can complain about efficiency tbh. We've pretty massively overperformed this season when it comes to taking our chances in games and the amount of goals we've scored compared to what we create. Not only that, but also with De Gea and our defensive record compared to what our opponents create against us. We've been way better then anyone can hope from an efficiency stand point. Where we need to improve is the general play. Creating more chances consistently, not looking so clueless when we get the ball so often but also not being so sloppy at the back and relying on de gea to bail us out time and time again. Agree, 2 new fullbacks would go a long way, but it would still be the same play style and lack of ideas on show when we get the ball. That stems from the training ground and needs improvement from Mourinho, not just buying better players.

 

[Donnie Brasco]

Sorry did I insult you personally or something?

This season, like last season, we're basically doing the bare minimum of what is to be expected. It isn't "great management" or a tremendous achievement or anything like that. We're Manchester United, we have the spending power that only City can match, and we have outspent everyone but City consistently over the last 5 years. We flopped massively under Moyes and Van Gaal, so if you want to use them as the barometer for every other manager's achievements, then go ahead.

Mourinho's been here for 2 full seasons. He's achieved the minimum and no more after those 2 seasons, considering the players he has at his disposal. Flopped massively in the league last season and flopped massively in the Champions League this season. I don't even blame the lack of winning the CL or really competing for the title. Not everyone can win everything all the time. It's the constant shit performances, and until those change, then I won't be fully happy with having Mourinho as the manager. City set records in the league by playing great attacking football. Liverpool are set to be in a Champions League final, playing attacking football and scoring boatloads of goals. We're in an FA Cup final, sure, but we play like trash every single week and grind out results. That doesn't deserve that much credit, especially, when you ultimately don't succeed in your main goals anyway.

Our best players are the players he brought in. He had nothing to work with when he arrived.

He has overachieved so far. Spending and money means feck all. AC Milan being a fine example. LVG spend alot of money aswell on absolute shite.

 

[ChaddyP]

Look, mate. You don't just go into a gym and become a champion boxer. Things proceed by steps. If you win your early fights you should have a small sense of achievement albeit still being hungry to get better.

Yeh but we were always a "champion boxer" we arent Spurs ffs. Some bad decisions like hiring fecking moyes and shipping away all our winners is more like us being the "champoin boxer" that drank and had a fecking DUI , sobered up and almost back to standing up straight without barfing. Congrats? nah feck that.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Given City's ridiculous season, and that we actually matched them head-to-head second really was all we could have hoped for this year unfortunately, negative and defeatist though it sounds.

I'm by no means turning cartwheels over it but a solid CL finish, hopefully second and the FA Cup to boot, at least gives us a solid platform on which to build better football and a genuine title challenge next time.

Think getting a second helps to attract players as well. We will find out in the summer if the style will be implemented better or even improved upon. Don't think he will fall into the Sevilla trap again, he won't but the players need to make sure they don't. You can tell players time and time again to not take a team lightly, but if they don't listen you may as well talk to yourself. Unfortunately they are human.

 

[Random Task]

No but we also don' think we should be saying "wow incredible achievement" for this. Yes he is doing well and we are progressing if you look at the big picture but at a very, very slow rate. Also, progress does not guarantee anything. LVG second season was worst than his first and we thought we progressed in the first from Moyes.

We're coming off the back of 9 wins out of 10 in all competitions, this includes victories of Chelsea, Liverpool, City, Spurs and Arsenal (a largely impressive feat in itself), surely this would indicate a strong show of progression. Finishing second, with a strong chance of winning the FA Cup, is more than enough for the club to build on.

This summer is vital, Jose needs to address the ongoing fullback problem, plus add a world class midfielder and a winger. Should that happen, and we have every reason to believe it will given the relative strength of the clubs finances, we will be challenging for the title next season. No doubt about it.

 

[Rash Decision]

I agree that top 4 is nothing to celebrate, but should we get over the line, finishing 2nd with a strong points tally would be something worth appreciating. Add an FA Cup on top of that and this would have been a satisfying season results-wise.

Performances leave a lot to be desired, but can't complain about our record against the top 6 in 2018. There's some hope in there, methinks.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Don't think anyone can complain about efficiency tbh. We've pretty massively overperformed this season when it comes to taking our chances in games and the amount of goals we've scored compared to what we create. Not only that, but also with De Gea and our defensive record compared to what our opponents create against us. We've been way better then anyone can hope from an efficiency stand point. Where we need to improve is the general play. Creating more chances consistently, not looking so clueless when we get the ball so often but also not being so sloppy at the back and relying on de gea to bail us out time and time again. Agree, 2 new fullbacks would go a long way, but it would still be the same play style and lack of ideas on show when we get the ball. That stems from the training ground and needs improvement from Mourinho, not just buying better players.

Think it will be more about creating more chances, but Valencia for example breaks down a lot of our attacks by not getting a decent ball in or beating his man. I would love to be able to attack down both flanks. It scares teams if they know they can't shut a team down easily. At the moment, stop the left and we are flummoxed.

 

[12OunceEpilogue]

Think getting a second helps to attract players as well. We will find out in the summer if the style will be implemented better or even improved upon. Don't think he will fall into the Sevilla trap again, he won't but the players need to make sure they don't. You can tell players time and time again to not take a team lightly, but if they don't listen you may as well talk to yourself. Unfortunately they are human.

Agree and of course we can't build for next year every year like Arsenal and Liverpool have done of late. There's only so many times you can say 'next season is our season' before it becomes embarrassing.

 

[NotATroll]

Yeh but we were always a "champion boxer" we arent Spurs ffs. Some bad decisions like hiring fecking moyes and shipping away all our winners is more like us being the "champoin boxer" that drank and had a fecking DUI , sobered up and almost back to standing up straight without barfing. Congrats? nah feck that.

Where the hell have you been? No, what we are is a boxer that used to be good but got fat or did drugs and lost his competitive edge. We're there to be mocked because we're has-beens and our history is only relevant when it comes to scorning us even more. We can't expect anything and have something to prove. Please adapt to the new reality instead of living off past glories.

 

[bosnian_red]

Our best players are the players he brought in. He had nothing to work with when he arrived.

He has overachieved so far. Spending and money means feck all. AC Milan being a fine example. LVG spend alot of money aswell on absolute shite.

The players he brought in... Sorry I don't see much of a difference in Matic this season or Herrera winning POTY last season. In fact he probably hasn't been as good. Lukaku has done pretty well, but nothing that special tbh. Mkhitaryan was in and out. Pogba has constant question marks. Lindelof is a squad player. Bailly is always injured. Sanchez hasn't had a huge impact since his arrival despite obviously being a world class player on paper.

You look at the players we have now. Pogba, Lukaku, Sanchez, Matic, Herrera, Martial, Rashford, Mata.. hell even our defence has very good players in it, along with the best goalkeeper around. We have good players in the team and you can't say for a single player in our squad this season that they've performed at their best. Maybe Ashley Young if we're really looking deep. They've all been inconsistent as feck, all struggled in long periods, and all could do much better. Sure if it's one or two players, you can look at them individually as needing to improve. But when it's every single player, then I'd say that's on the manager not being able to get the best out of them.

 

[tombombadil]

Lots of entitlement going around here. People talking shit and belittling this achievement without perspective. Such arrogance. What, you expect to just snap your fingers and qualify for CL so easily? You have to earn it and Mourinho and the team have earned it. With games to spare. We have been struggling to even qualify the previous few years and now we are comfortably in. It's progress and a good step forward. Now the team must focus on the next match and then the next match until we secure 2nd. Then after that it's the FA Cup. and then after that it's preparing to fight for the title next season.

 

[ChaddyP]

Where the hell have you been? No, what we are is a boxer that used to be good but got fat or did drugs and lost his competitive edge. We're there to be mocked because we're has-beens and our history is only relevant when it comes to scorning us even more. We can't expect anything and have something to prove. Please adapt to the new reality instead of living off past glories.

did you even read my post?

 

[bosnian_red]

Think it will be more about creating more chances, but Valencia for example breaks down a lot of our attacks by not getting a decent ball in or beating his man. I would love to be able to attack down both flanks. It scares teams if they know they can't shut a team down easily. At the moment, stop the left and we are flummoxed.

Agree, but I also think it's a bit unrealistic to expect a huge attacking output from your fullbacks. We aren't going to get Marcelo at left back or someone like that on the right. What you want from left back is reliable movement off the ball to get in those positions (Valencia does this very well), but also what he lacks is a decent cross at least somewhat consistently. That would of course improve us a lot, having that from both sides, but more then that would be just better wide players or a better system to get the wide players we have in better situations. Martial showed today how when we play with a bit of pace, he can constantly find himself 1v1 and make shit happen. Get someone on the right who can be a threat and make things happen, then you have your fullback overlap as a plan B. Very few teams have their fullbacks as their main creative outlet on the wings. They normally just aren't creative players. You need your natural attacking players to play that role and have the fullbacks as plan B.

 

[botond]

whens the bus tour ?

 

[Paxi]

Damn straight. I'm ecstatic.

Some people forgetting that we don't have SAF the genius any more and hitting the top spots is no guarantee especially against a couple of cash rich billionaires! We've comfortably beaten last years Champions who looked unbeatable! And we have a chance to stick a nail in the coffin at the FA Cup final.

Really???

 

[golden_blunder]

What next, congrats for getting in the top ten?

We set out to win the title and we failed miserably

We didn’t set out to win the title, Mourinho said at the start we’re still rebuilding

 

[ChaddyP]

Where the hell have you been? No, what we are is a boxer that used to be good but got fat or did drugs and lost his competitive edge. We're there to be mocked because we're has-beens and our history is only relevant when it comes to scorning us even more. We can't expect anything and have something to prove. Please adapt to the new reality instead of living off past glories.

Lad have a look at yourself. Honestly. Im not saying we should win the league every year. But top 4 is and should be seen as the bare minimun and shouldnt be something we make a thread about celebrating and talking about this is the new reality. feck is wrong with you.

 

[Paxi]

Won’t be possible if City are as good next season as they have been this season.

Well we dropped about 9 stupid points this season. We should be winning those games. Next year I expect more consistency.

 

[ash_86]

So much bitterness here. No one's asking anyone to celebrate. Is a few good words about our progress asking too much?

 

[Water Melon]

We are not Arsenal or Tottenham or Liverpool. Not reaching top 4 would have been a catastrophe. Kissing goodbye to EPL hopes before X-mas is a huge disappointment as is being knocked out of CL by Sevilla. So,overall it is an okay season, not much to write home about. Another hopeless league campaign next season would be a failure imo.

 

[nickm]

Champions league qualification is always worth celebrating.

 

[Massive Spanner]

This is a shocker of a thread.

 

[MDFC Manager]

Wow.

 

[nickm]

Too many fanbois. Not enough fans.

 

[TsuWave]

congratulation threads for securing CL. smh

 

[Ban]

God forbid someone creates a positive thread about Jose. It gets shot down on 3rd thread with people making up that someone is celebrating 4th.

 

[Ban]

The players he brought in... Sorry I don't see much of a difference in Matic this season or Herrera winning POTY last season. In fact he probably hasn't been as good. Lukaku has done pretty well, but nothing that special tbh. Mkhitaryan was in and out. Pogba has constant question marks. Lindelof is a squad player. Bailly is always injured. Sanchez hasn't had a huge impact since his arrival despite obviously being a world class player on paper.

You look at the players we have now. Pogba, Lukaku, Sanchez, Matic, Herrera, Martial, Rashford, Mata.. hell even our defence has very good players in it, along with the best goalkeeper around. We have good players in the team and you can't say for a single player in our squad this season that they've performed at their best. Maybe Ashley Young if we're really looking deep. They've all been inconsistent as feck, all struggled in long periods, and all could do much better. Sure if it's one or two players, you can look at them individually as needing to improve. But when it's every single player, then I'd say that's on the manager not being able to get the best out of them.

That's all well and good but how come we're finishing the season strong and will probably be 2nd which is a good progression and position after all the shit that went on since Moyes came.
Is it cause players are playing some good stuff despite Jose not having a clue about managing them or?

 

[Class of 63]

Have we ever had it so good ?

Thanks Jose, we couldn't have done it without you !!

 

[TheFlagStaysDown]

Meh... with the players we have and the way we play we won't be winning shit in Europe.

Yeah I wonder how big success it will be when we get knocked out by some Villareal right in the first knockoutstage. 2nd or top4 shouldn't be a success for Manchster Untied, we should be more working on improving our overall football, that should be doable and still could finish top4

 

[bosnian_red]

That's all well and good but how come we're finishing the season strong and will probably be 2nd which is a good progression and position after all the shit that went on since Moyes came.
Is it cause players are playing some good stuff despite Jose not having a clue about managing them or?

Because we've been incredibly efficient this season and there is a large middle ground between Mourinho not having a clue and being the perfect manager for United... hes done alright, but nothing special. We're 2nd because we have good players and Mourinho has them playing a style whereby having better players will get us the results most of the time. It's a very pragmatic and safe approach, but its Mou. So we are 2nd. But if you want more, if you want to watch entertaining football and see the players play as a team, then I'm not sure we'll get that with Mourinho. Or at least, he has to prove it next season.

Everything we do, we do it by grinding it out. That isnt sustainable imo. We're resilient, yes, and are developing a winning mentality which is critical, but you also need the performances eventually otherwise they'll catch up with you (as they did in the champions league for us).

 

[GM K]

I think the signs of progress are pretty obvious. Beating City, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool and Arsenal while comfortably coming second, makes me optimistic for next season. I am guessing that non United fans must be sensing that both Jose and United are gradually coming back to the top.

 

[Ban]

Because we've been incredibly efficient this season and there is a large middle ground between Mourinho not having a clue and being the perfect manager for United... hes done alright, but nothing special. We're 2nd because we have good players and Mourinho has them playing a style whereby having better players will get us the results most of the time. It's a very pragmatic and safe approach, but its Mou. So we are 2nd. But if you want more, if you want to watch entertaining football and see the players play as a team, then I'm not sure we'll get that with Mourinho. Or at least, he has to prove it next season.

Everything we do, we do it by grinding it out. That isnt sustainable imo. We're resilient, yes, and are developing a winning mentality which is critical, but you also need the performances eventually otherwise they'll catch up with you (as they did in the champions league for us).

If that's true we're efficient as it gets and we only grind out results. But I dont think that's true, that we've been just grinding out results week in week out. I mean I've been hearing all season that it will catch us, that we're punching above our weight and here we are, we're 2nd and still punching above our weight supposedly. It's not sustainable? Well, we sustained it the whole season somehow.

Sure performances could and should be better but the way our play was described is ridiculous, morbid, awful and whatnot. As you said we're developing a winning mentality and there's certainly a sing of progress with this team and the club overall. We could still get even better results next season even without playing entertaining stuff.
And we need performances? Winning so many games means we indeed had some good performances, you dont win all by accident or being just efficient.
As I said progression is there for all to see.
For instance, results vs top 6 which has been a stick to beat Jose with, are very, very good this season.

 

[AngliaRed]

City ran away with the title

Bottled it against Sevilla

FA Cup & 2nd place is a must then mount a serious title challenge next year.

 

[Vidyoyo]

Minimum standard that we should expect but it's clearly a positive compared to how shite we were in the league last year and the year before that and the year before that.

If we get some decent full backs and another midfielder we should be competing for the title next time round.